


Postscript

by justbygrace



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Canon verse, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-02
Updated: 2017-04-02
Packaged: 2018-10-13 21:29:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10522245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justbygrace/pseuds/justbygrace
Summary: Post Doomsday - the Doctor's POV. Journey's End compliant.





	

At first he went nearly every week, sometimes more often, never less. He was inconspicuous in the crowds, just another poor soul caught in the aftermath of a tragedy, practically invisible in a sea of sobbing folks. He would go and pace, mingle with the people to feel and be a part of something, loving the camaraderie and hating the loneliness all in the same breath. A few people would give him sympathetic looks, a pat on the back, a “sorry,” but it never helped, never lessened the dull ache.

Eventually the crowds thinned out as people went back to their lives, still grieving but with families, homes, jobs. He had none of that, no reason not to visit and a thousand, a million reasons to keep coming back. If he was alone, if it was quiet, if he stood perfectly still, sometimes he swore he could catch her scent on the air of the northern breeze.

After several weeks - or maybe months, time sort of ceased having meaning for him - he went less often. Once a month, twice a month, three times, after a particularly nasty adventure - though those too ceased having meaning for him; he would make his excuses and oh, he was ever so good at them now, and return, sometimes to sit, sometimes to pace, occasionally to yell, more often to silently seethe, once or twice to cry. He rarely spoke aloud, besides a few occasions when his screams tore at the souls of those passing by; he preferred to communicate silently, the way it was, they way they used to, back before, back when…

Anyway. He attended a memorial or two, but they were black and white affairs with none of the color with which his world used to be infused. After that he worshiped and memorialized on his own, far away from packed crowds, mass crying, and prayers to a god for which he had no use.

There came a day when he did not come, a month when he could not, a year that was not; afterwards he spent hours in complete silence there; leaning against the stone wall with a expression that did not invite small talk. He became woven into local legend that day in a way that nothing else he had done had afforded him and there was sick sense of irony about that in which he reveled.

He came less often in person…in his mind he was there every hour of every day, every single second of every hour of every day of every week because he was a Lord and his domain was Time. That which he had in abundance, that which he equal parts loved and loathed; that which simultaneously healed his wounds and damned him to an eternity of suffering. Time where he learned to smile - at least in public, to joke and laugh - at least to get himself out of jail, to appreciate humanity, their quirks and eccentricities…but not to love, never to love.

Love was a thing that was lost to him - stolen before it had a chance to be acknowledged aloud, but friendship, that he learned; a friendship that helped him to see the colors the world had to offer, to smell the air, and to taste the food. He still visited, but it became less regular and more sporadic, timed to anniversaries of which he had once claimed to know nothing of and now observed with a kind of religious devotion.

One evening in a street so close and yet so far from this epicenter, he learned the depth of happiness and the heights of despair in a way in which he had never before realized and he breathed life into the one thing that would slay his own and when that life came forth and spoke and moved and promised to dance, he cursed himself by blessing them.

When he returned to the shrine his rage was complete and he let loose a fury the likes of which that the earth had only dreamed of and when the dust settled the city arose to find its memorial was no more.

There are rumors that a man who changes his face sometimes walks the streets very near the sea, his anger as cold as ice, his rage as hot as the depths of hell, but it is only that, a rumor. The reality is that the man who can change his face has taught entire continents the meaning of rage because there is no one to temper him, always looking forward because he dare not look back, and occasionally he remembers the northern breeze and the scent of a far distant goddess at whose feet he once worshiped.


End file.
